Clothing Brand Lead Times: 7 Steps to Faster Repeat Orders

The quickest way to shorten your clothing brand lead times isn't to rush your first collection. It's to make sure you never have to develop the same garment twice.

In Part 1, we looked at H&M's six-week lead times and why a startup brand shouldn't try to match them. This part is the practical side. If your first order took months, here's how to make sure the next one doesn't.

Step 1: Build and Approve Your Blocks

A block is your brand's base pattern: the bodice, skirt or trouser shape that every new style grows from. Get it right once and each new design starts from a proven fit rather than a blank sheet.

Brands without approved blocks develop every style from scratch, and each one needs its own full round of fittings. Brands with them can often skip a round on new styles, because the fit questions were answered the first time. Across a year of launches, that adds up to weeks.

Step 3: Keep a Complete Tech Pack and Bill of Materials

A tech pack tells the factory how to make the garment. A bill of materials, or BOM, lists everything that goes into it: main fabric, lining, interfacing, thread, zips, hooks and labels, with the quantity used per garment.

One of the most common misconceptions about tech packs is that they're written once and never touched again. Update both every time something changes during sampling. The version on file should match the garment you approved, not the one you started with.

Keep your own copy of the final pattern and tech pack, too. If the only full record lives in one person's head, your repeat order depends on that person being free the week you need it.

Step 5: Document Every Trim and Supplier

Trims cause more repeat delays than most founders expect. A button gets discontinued. A zip arrives in a slightly different shade. A lace you sourced in a week now has a twelve-week wait.

For each trim, record the supplier, product code, colour reference and price. Keep a physical card of approved trims in the studio. When the repeat comes round, you're reordering from a list rather than hunting through old emails.

Step 7: Stay With a Manufacturer Who Knows Your Product

Switching factories to save a few pounds per piece resets the clock. A new manufacturer has to learn your construction, your quality standard and your fit, and that almost always means another sample round.

A studio that has already made your garment knows where the tricky seams are and how your fabric behaves under the needle. That knowledge is worth more than the saving, with one exception. If the quality isn't there, move on, and take your full documentation with you.

One of our clients is very clever with his wholesale deliveries. His principle is to deliver to stores as soon as the delivery window opens. That gives his pieces a longer sell-through period, with less chance of stock sitting unsold and ending up in the sale.

The strategy works so well that he often gets repeat orders at the time other brands are only just delivering their first major order. Because everything is already developed and the fabric is bought from stock, we can turn his repeats around within two weeks.

Not Everything in Your Collection Needs to Be Fast

Your hero evening dress may need months of careful development every season. Your bestselling trouser in a continuity fabric could become something you reorder in a fraction of that time. Both can sit in the same collection, and they should.

That's the principle behind H&M's six weeks, scaled down to a brand your size. Develop properly once. Then build the records, relationships and habits that let you respond the moment a style takes off.

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